Editor's Focus - Taking Action Against ID Theft

State legislatures throughout the country continue to debate the need for consumer protection against ID theft, resulting in the introduction or enactment of new legislation or amendments to existing laws.

For instance, in early September, the California Senate passed a bill to protect consumer data, sending it back to the California Assembly for ratification. As of mid-September, the bill, AB 779, was sitting on Gov. Schwarzenegger’s desk awaiting signature.

AB 779 would provide for consumers to be notified when retailers lose their credit or debit card information, informing them when the information was lost and by which retailer. The retailers at fault would be responsible for the costs associated with consumer notification and card replacement under the legislation. Additionally, the legislation would require retailers to adhere to the critical provisions of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard.

Though legislation safeguarding consumers’ personal information has generally met with little resistance, according to press reports, it’s unsure whether Schwarzenegger will sign the legislation, which consumer groups support and the banking industry opposes because it claims that credit unions are exempted from the data security provisions.

California is not the only state addressing the issue of consumer data protection. Michigan Gov. Granholm has signed a bill requiring Social Security numbers to be removed from deeds and other official documents, and Texas has recently enacted a law that strengthens the credit-report freeze law it enacted in 2005. For $30 an individual can freeze her credit report to prevent against ID theft for any reason without filing a police report. The law also provides for the temporary unfreezing of credit reports using a personal identification number by phone. This preventive approach to ID theft is more effective and less expensive than credit monitoring services, which cost considerably more per year and don’t prevent unauthorized access.

We are interested in adding some new departments to SDB in the future, but we need our readers’ help. If you have been asked to destroy any noteworthy or unusual items, please contact me with the particulars at dtoto@gie.net, and you could be included in a future issue.

Also, we’d like to hear what a typical day is like in the lives of our readers. Do you have a particularly grueling route that you’d like to share with us or a brief case study of how you dealt with a challenging client? If so, please e-mail me at dtoto@gie.net with the details.